Tag Archives: Goats

I’m a city girl. Big time. I really admire the country lifestyle, but it’s just not in my bones. I try to grow tomatoes every summer… and I end up buying them from the store every summer. I want to try my hand at raising chickens this year. I’m not sure I’m cut out for it. I LOVE livestock… but I’ve only ever really been around it at say, a petting zoo. I drive by farms and cows all the time (I live in Kansas, after all), but I don’t have much first hand experience with any of it.

Soooo…. all of that being said, my very dear friend (who also happens to be a 4-H agent) texted me yesterday afternoon saying “wanna go see newborn goats?” My response was something along the lines of “OMG! HECK YES I WANT TO SEE BABY GOATS!!!” So this afternoon she took me and my boys to her friend’s house to see the babies that were born yesterday afternoon. Oh. Em. Geeee. So cute! He also had goats that were born today, that were only about three hours old when we got there. Incredible.

The circle of life is so beautiful. As we walked around this man’s farm, admiring the brand new babies and all of the pregnant mommies (he had somewhere around 50 gals that were about to pop–all due this week), he also told us about the 19 goats he had in a separate pen that would go to auction this week, the 2,700 pound bull that had gotten his 10 or so cows pregnant (all due in March) and the six itty-bitty, pocket-sized piglets he bought last spring and fed goat’s milk to, with the sole intention of slaughtering and roasting them for his daughter’s wedding. Apparently pigs are more delicious when they are raised on goat’s milk. Who woulda thought? (A farmer, I guess.) This man buys and sells, births and kills, feeds and milks more animals on any given day than I’d know what to do with in a lifetime.

Oh, and he owns his own auto shop. THAT is his job. Not this whole farm thing. He spends almost $1,000 each month in feed alone. As a country, we have NO CLUE what goes into farming. What goes into the food we eat. What we’d do without people like this man. And he’s small potatoes. He’s just a guy in Topeka with some goats. And some cows. And three chickens. He had never met me before… never even heard my name before he shook my hand. And yet he treated us like family. Even shook Bubbie’s hand when we got there. He insisted that we come back and visit. I love the hospitality of the Midwest. I really can’t imagine raising kids anywhere else. I love that Bubbie will grow up with these experiences. He loved the goats so much. (And so did Momma.) Here’s some photos from our adventure:

Hey Bubbie… wanna go to the farm?!

We’ve been working on animal sounds. I’ve “baa’ed” at him reading books and it’s the one sound he wouldn’t imitate. Until today. He had to hear it from the goats… he didn’t believe me. :)

It was a pretty overwhelming experience. He couldn’t take his eyes off the animals. This boy LOVES animals.

Three hours old. These little tiny goats were so sweet. They were trying so hard to walk.

Look how wide these ladies are! One of them was so big she would stand up for a minute and have to lay back down. He suspects she’s having triplets. She reminded me of myself a year and a half ago!! :)